Opinion
By Jeff Childers
04-10-23
Politico runs a surprisingly even-handed article about my Covid Litigation Conference; Switzerland yanks jab recommendations; how it started and how it’s going at the Oregon zoo — it could have been worse; Twitter revises “state affiliated” media tag; racists implicated in Pentagon war docs leak and Israel may have a deep state infestation; Times hysterically predicts the fall of Ukraine, unless we Venmo another few billion; US sends nukes to the Middle East — what could go wrong?; Biden forms new influencer army; and a leaked vaccine incentive schedule explains a lot.
🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞
🪖 On Saturday, I mentioned a new backup link for C&C in case anything happens to Substack, but since I’m not a Telegram expert, it turned out I needed to tweak a few settings first. That has now been done. If you tried but couldn’t find the Telegram channel, use t.me/CoffeeCovid instead.
There are other backup links at the end of each day’s post. So if something ever happens and C&C unexpectedly doesn’t show up, check the other backup sources.
🗞💬 *WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 💬🗞
🔥 Politico finally ran its article about the Covid Litigation Conference in Atlanta, headlined “Covid Battle Lines Moving from Emergency Room to Court Room.” Invoking conspiracy theories, the sub-headline explained, “Anti-government conspiracies and some recent court wins have spurred a boom of interest in Covid litigation.”
I hate to quibble, but I don’t think it is anti-government conspiracies spurring the boom of interest in covid litigation. I think it is all the dead and disabled people.
The article’s social media teaser headline was even more exciting: “Gold-Rush Fever and True Believers: Inside the Boom of Covid Litigation.”
The article began by pointing out the organizers’ proud display of the “misinformation” label:
A smiling blond woman appeared suddenly in front of me — right in front of me — and asked how she could help. Her black t-shirt said “Misinformation Superspreader.” Despite the message, she did point me in the right direction of the media registration table.
Haha, good one. By the way, you can buy those t-shirts at the VSRF’s online store: https://supportvacsafety.myshopify.com/.
I can’t say the article was even-handed; its point of view stuck out more than a “STOP COVID” face mask. But there were some subtle hints of fairness sprinkled into the mix like little bits of raisin in the fruitcake, and I recommend the read (I’ll link it below). At one point, the reporter surprisingly admitted:
Whether you’re in the fight or firmly on the other side of it, there is no denying some of the lawyers challenging the government’s right to intervene in Americans’ health are winning.
Yes. Yes we are.
Nor did I have any complaints with how Politico summarized the conference’s aims:
[L]awyers are gearing up for a new wave of tort cases seeking compensation for alleged harm those measures have done — a wave, they say, that could rival opioid litigation or the tobacco lawsuits that were argued in courts for decades and which ultimately ended in Big Tobacco paying states more than $200 billion.
“We need to knock down the doors of every court that we can, and if the courts say, ‘We’re closed,’ [then] we need meaningful legislative reform,” said Robert Barnes, who has represented InfoWars’ Alex Jones and taken on several Covid-related cases. “This can never happen again.”
The audience leapt to their feet to applaud.
Is it possible that people can read this article two completely different ways? I found many of the comments joyful and uplifting signs of progress and good news, but I wonder if liberals somehow find the same words anarchically threatening.
The reporter did not mock anyone or take anything out of context (much). She told the story of one non-lawyer attendee, a lively 75-year-old violinist and Soviet emigré who’s been suspended from the New York Opera after 45 years of play for declining the jab. Her religious exemption was denied.
“My big question is: How does this happen in this country?” she asked. Raised by a mother who lived in the Soviet Union, she said she grew up hearing about the dangers of authoritarianism. She changed her political affiliation from Democrat to Republican years ago when she felt Democrats were wading into parts of people’s lives where they didn’t belong. But seeing how Washington conducted itself during the pandemic has changed the way she feels about the government “more than 100 percent.”
Wow. There’s so much there; the veiled comparison to communism, the walkaway reference, and a not-so-subtle criticism of the government’s pandemic response. The reporter could have distorted or downplayed the violinist’s opinion but instead justly and journalistically reported them without commentary.
The reporter also decently recognized some of the government’s failures during the pandemic, although she characterized the missteps as simple messaging problems, and suggested — without evidence — that the agencies have learned their lessons. For contrast, she cited public health experts who did not defend the government’s response but are alarmed that some lawyers are pushing back:
Federal health agencies know their mistakes during the pandemic — issuing confusing guidance, sluggish and bungled responses — contributed to this historic loss of public trust, and that regaining it is critical to being able to protect Americans during future health threats. …
For public health experts who want to see the government maintain a wide range of powers to protect the public from future outbreaks, events like this conference are an alarming development. “This isn’t trivial,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law. “If you were to ask me: Is America more prepared now for a pandemic than it was before Covid? I would say no, even though we experienced it and saw the devastation. What we’ve seen is a decimation of public health authority.”
Well, whose fault is THAT? I give the reporter credit for not invoking the specter of “disinformation” but allowing the health authorities were at least partly responsible.
It’s not quite the admission of error many have been waiting for. Not yet. But — and this is the interesting part — the reporters quoted nobody who gave a full-throated endorsement of how the pandemic was handled. I don’t blame her. Where are all the government’s defenders?
It’s getting down to the mumbler and that cockroach, Fauci.
Although the article was fairer than I ever expected, Politico’s URL unmasked how it really looks at the conference: we’re just a bunch of anti-vaxxers: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/09/anti-vax-covid-litigation-00090939. Despite that, the article is worth a read whenever you have a few minutes. I think it will encourage you.
Anyway, I’ll take it! You have to start someplace.
💉 ZeroHedge ran a story yesterday headlined, “Switzerland Stops Recommending COVID-19 Vaccination.” The sub-headline explained, “Swiss authorities have stopped recommending COVID-19 vaccination, including for people who are designated at high risk from COVID-19.”
There’s something here about shutting the barn door after all the pandemic ponies have already raced away down the vaccine valley. The Swiss government didn’t base its decision on the high Injection Fatality Rate. The Swiss health authorities explained that the reversal is because we’re now past the worst part of the pandemic:
“Nearly everyone in Switzerland has been vaccinated and/or contracted and recovered from COVID-19. Their immune system has therefore been exposed to the coronavirus. In spring/summer 2023, the virus will likely circulate less. The current virus variants also cause rather mild illness.”
See how they snuck the reference to natural immunity in there like it was a completely uncontroversial idea? We could’ve used that kind of level-headed scientific thinking a year or two ago.
Okay, CDC, it’s your turn. It’s time to regain some of that decimated public trust or lose even more of it.
💉 How it started:
How it’s going:
Hey, it happens all the time. Well-fed animals with round-the-clock veterinary care keel over a lot more than you’d think. Not so much in the wild, of course, but they face lots of other risks out there, like deranged MAGA hunters who shoot to kill on sight.
RIP, Takoda the bear. Thank goodness your caring zoo handlers made the independent decision to get you the vaccines, it could have been so much worse.
🔥 After NPR threatened to rage-quit Twitter if its new “state affiliated” label wasn’t removed, Twitter changed it to “government funded media.” It also tagged the BBC, Voice of America, and PBS.
All four deep-state media organs, I mean organizations, are protesting the new label. But how can they? It’s true. All of them are at least partly funded by the government, and consumers should know that.
The BBC in particular has loudly objected that 100% of its funding comes from British citizens. So, how can they be considered “government funded?” Well, maybe because citizens are mandated to pay the BBC under British law or go to jail. In other words, the UK government orders its citizens to pay the BBC at rifle-point. Seems like “government-funded” to me.
🔥 We now know more about the identity of the Pentagon leaker: whoever it was had to be RACIST. The Wall Street Journal ran a long-form followup article on the disclosures yesterday headlined, “New Details on Intelligence Leak Show It Circulated for Weeks Before Raising Alarm”. The sub-headline — which was repeated in the article’s first sentence — explained “The secret documents were first posted in January to a small group on a messaging channel that trafficked in memes, jokes and racist talk.”
Racists! It figures.
In addition to insurrection, the Biden Administration is also bringing back TREASON. According to the Journal, the leak investigation is one of the FBI’s top priorities as investigators diligently review who could’ve accessed the information, and coldly calculate who might’ve had a motive to make it public. “The FBI is approaching this as if someone has committed a treasonous act,” said Joshua Skule, a former FBI senior executive who is now the president of the government contracting firm Bow Wave, and who was quoted for the story.
In related news, the leaked intelligence hints that Israel might have its own deep state infestation. Apart from the Proxy War stuff, one of the divulged items was a CIA update stating that Mossad leaders “advocated for Mossad officials and Israeli citizens to protest against the new Israeli government’s proposed judicial reform, including several explicit calls to action that decried the Israeli government.” The update cited “signals intelligence,” a euphemism for the U.S. government wiretapping conversations between Mossad leaders.
It’s Spy versus Spy!
Even more weirdly, Mossad — which almost never says ANYTHING publicly — took the rare step yesterday — on a weekend — of publicly denying the report, calling the allegations “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.” Well, they aren’t going to ADMIT IT, are they? I suppose there’s a fair argument that the CIA might try to shift the blame for Israel’s recent color revolution protests, even in its internal documents.
Meanwhile, Minecrafters have been on a digital shredding spree, frantically deleting their servers and messages faster than Obama officials preparing to move out of the White House. They saw what happened to J6 Trump supporters and they know what’s coming.
🚀 Wait. Just wait. The New York Times ran a shocking story yesterday headlined, “Leaked Documents Suggest Ukrainian Air Defense Is in Peril if Not Reinforced.” The sub-headline explained, “A huge influx of munitions is needed to keep Russia’s air force from changing the course of the war, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents.”
Now, this is extremely weird. Corporate media has been PROMISING that Ukraine was literally on the brink of winning the war any second now. How could this have happened?
The article is really a primer on why Joe Biden needs to Venmo tons more cash, U.S. anti-aircraft weapons, and missile defense systems to Ukraine, like yesterday. Zelensky has already sold, I mean used up, the last batch of gear.
You see how this game works, don’t you? Whenever we send billions of untraceable cash and packaged for shipping war materiél to Ukraine, they run chipper stories glowingly assuring the public it was all worth it, because NOW the Ukrainians are REALLY going to put Putin in his place, just watch.
But then whenever they need to excavate billions more out of the U.S. treasury, corporate media runs articles like this one, hysterically fretting that Ukraine is on the very verge of imminent defeat.
Victory-defeat-cash, victory-defeat-cash, and so on and on it goes, endlessly recycled, and it will keep on doing that until somebody wises up.
🚀 The Cradle.co ran a story yesterday headlined, “US Deploys Nuclear Submarine to West Asia as Influence Plummets.” The sub-headline explained, “As China and Russia expand their influence in West Asia, and Arab nations move to reconcile with Iran and Syria, Washington has seen its grip on the region weaken significantly.”
Presumably, our nuclear sub has nukes on it.
The Pentagon announced Saturday that the USS Florida — a nuclear-powered, guided-missile submarine — has been deployed to the Red Sea to support the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet. In a rare move, the Pentagon released a picture of the Ohio-class submarine crossing the Suez Canal on its way to the Persian Gulf.
Usually, we don’t give away the locations of our nuclear submarines while they are deployed at sea. That sort of defeats the whole purpose. Unless you have a different purpose, like escalating the conflict.
Unnamed US officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal said the Florida’s deployment was related to new Pentagon “intelligence that Iran was planning further attacks across the region in the near term.”
Foreign nationals posted some spicy comments about the news:
Can you blame him? Instead of trying to influence Americans’ opinions, maybe the government’s agencies should be trying harder to improve our image abroad. I’m just saying.
🔥 Speaking of trying to influence Americans, Axios ran a story yesterday headlined, “Biden’s digital strategy: an army of influencers.”
In other words, Biden isn’t just at war with the Russians.
According to Axios, Team Biden — using White House government resources and not campaign resources — is recruiting TikTok stars and other “social media influencers” to support Biden’s re-election campaign, under the banner of “combating disinformation.” Axios uncritically reported the “move aims to boost Biden’s standing among young voters who are crucial to Democrats’ success in elections” and noted the influencers may soon have their own briefing room at the White House.
I thought that kind of thing was illegal, but Clinton rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, so maybe it’s okay.
Rob Flaherty leads the digital outreach effort, and has been given the lofty title of “assistant to the president” — which is the same high rank and has the same presidential access as the White House communications director and the press secretary.
This is another way of jamming government messaging into young Americans’ brains by bribing social media cutouts, in an effort to circumvent the Constitution and get around various laws supposedly prohibiting the government from using government resources for political campaigns, and more importantly, forbidding psychological attacks against Americans.
Bizarrely, behind the scenes Biden is courting supporters on TikTok, even while publicly demanding the platform be sold off to a friendlier owner, or risk being banned because of the platform’s ties to China’s government.
💉 For all of you who were pressured to take the jabs by an irate doctor, here’s some help understanding what you were up against. Someone leaked the Kentucky Blue Cross “Provider Incentive Payment” schedule for browbeating members into taking the shots and then making sure they got into the state’s vaccine database:
According to statistics I’ve seen, doctors make an average of $65 per patient visit. So the incentives were extremely lucrative.
PATIENT: “Doc, I had a bad reaction to the first shot and felt like I was having a heart attack. I’m not sure I want the second one.”
DOCTOR: “Don’t worry, Joe, that was probably a transient anomaly, or gas, or maybe just anxiety from taking the shot. You can safely take the second shot, no problem, and that’s my completely independent judgment that is not influenced in any way by the government or my self-interest, believe me.”
PATIENT: “Okay, doc, I guess if you say so. You’re not getting extra money if I get the next shot or anything, right?”
DOCTOR: “Joe, how dare you. I didn’t go medical school for ten years to just recommend medicine to people because I make a few extra bucks. Besides, you want to be part of the solution, don’t you? You don’t want your kids to grow up fatherless? You want to be a good person, right?”
<JAB>
PATIENT: Ouch!
It is literally a crime when pharmaceutical companies pay doctors to recommend particular products. The rationale is simple: we recognize that money influences doctors’ good judgment and then bad things happen. But for some reason, when pharma reps go to work for the government, they can get away with it, no problem, as this Anthem vaccine-incentives schedule clearly shows.
If it’s a crime when pharma does it, it should also be criminal when the government does it. Let me know if you agree.
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for even more delicious Coffee & Covid.
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
